by Irvine Welsh
Matty drops the bags and steps forward, tensed up. This forces Renton and therefore Sick Boy to do the same with their respectve ends of the plank. — So ah’m a fuckin tramp? Cunt, looked at yersel lately, ya fuckin mingin –
— STOAP IT! Spud shouts, as he and Keezbo drop their plank ends and get in between them. — Stoap aw this shite, youse! Ah hate tae see mates arguin!
— Aye, behave yersels, ya fuckin radges. Sick Boy shakes his head, nods across to the back of an overlooking tenement with kitchen lights burning.
— Keep it doon, or they’ll have the polis oantae us! Let’s pick up the fuckin wid!
— It’s aw gaun wrong … Spud muses, but Matty, though mumbling to himself, is picking up the wooden plank, taking over from Spud, and they’re off again.
— It’s aw gaunny be sound, Mr Danny, Keezbo whispers as Spud, in miserable gratitude, grabs the bags. — We git a stack ay gear, keep some ay it tae punt n some tae wean oursels oaf.
— That’s it! Renton says in revelation. — Ration ourselves the right amount each day, aw scientific, the reduction cure. Measure it oot scientifically.
— Scientifically … Spud says blankly.
Matty marches in a silent hell. The rough stave is tearing at his neck, yet to move it from his shoulder is to shred his already poisoned hand. The blue dark sky ahead is now lit with the sinister glow of the plant. He thinks of Shirley, Lisa, and the flat at Wester Hailes. It seemed like a prison, that poky box; now he’d give anything to be there, with them. He suddenly convulses and drops the plank, which makes Keezbo instinctively let go his end.
Renton and Sick Boy follow suit. — What’s wrong?
— Cunt, ah cannae … ah cannae dae this any mair, Matty crouches, rubbing his gut. — Ah’m crampin up tae fuck!
— We huv tae, it’s aw we can dae, Spud goes, and picks up Matty’s end. It dawns on him how sick Matty must be; he’s used more and for longer than any of them.
Sick Boy, hoisting the plank onto his shoulder, glares at Matty. — Dinnae crap oot on us!
Matty turns and walks a few paces behind them, holding his stomach. He realises he’s left the bags, so he stumbles miserably back to retrieve them, then follows. He can’t stop scratching his skin, making big scabs, then ripping them off and tearing at the raw, infected flesh with his filthy fingernails. His eyes are red and weary.
They shuffle like constipated penguins towards the spot where the embankment runs close to the fence. They can see the outbuilding, which, to Sick Boy, seems bigger than before. Renton’s eyeballs ache; it takes him a while to focus, even though the floodlights shine into the desolate plant. No sign of life. It’s like a concentration camp, Renton reflects, and they look like Belsen survivors, trying to break in.
The huge silver, box-shaped building comes into view, the pipes spilling from it like spaghetti, the big, lustrous chimney and the other funnels shooting skywards. Then a faint sound, and some wisps of steam coming from one pipe against the dark backdrop. Bar a few isolated dark smudges of cloud, the glowing sky is cavernous and transparent, shimmering with galaxies new, this miracle coming so close to the dirty, crumbling tenements.
— Whoa, man … ye think thaire’s a night shift? Spud gasps.
— Naw, Matty says breathlessly, — it’ll be the machines, like robots, still processin it aw. They cannae shut doon the machinery and restart it every day. They’ll keep it gaun through the night.
Sick Boy does an impromptu Begbie impersonation: — Any fuckin robot radge gits fuckin wide they git fuckin chibbed, android or nae fuckin android.
They laugh through their sickness, bonded again, until Spud goes into a dry, hacking coughing fit, almost to the point of seizure. They are concerned about him, after his illness, but he abruptly settles down, his eyes watering, as he forces wispy gasps of air into his shallow lungs. — Aw, man … he says over and over again, shaking his head.
— You okay, pal? Renton asks.
— Aye … just gittin ma breath back … aw, man …
Renton looks to Sick Boy, who nods, and they position the plank halfway down the side of the steep embankment and let it fall forward towards the thick mesh wire of the barricade. The end of the stave hits the fence with a crash, provoking a stentorian rustle of chain metal, before coming to rest and nestling on top of the barbed wire. Fearful of detection, they scramble back up to the railway line, where they fall prone, looking from the trackside into the plant.
All is still.
After a few minutes Renton rises and slips down the bank towards the stave. He steps onto it, testing it with his weight, then walks precariously up the forty-five-degree angle towards the barbed wire, which sparkles with starlight, as the razored metal digging into the wood of the plank holds it in place. Cheeks puffed out, Renton ascends to the top of the fence, lit by the resonant white moon, which blasts out briefly from behind layered, murky clouds, then he scurries back down to the embankment. — It’s okay, he says to the others, who are now on their feet, marvelling at him like he’s a trapeze artist. — The secret is no tae look doon. Gie’s the end ay that other plank!
He takes one end and Matty takes the other. With the extra weight of the second body and plank to bear, the first one curves slightly. Renton gingerly makes his way to the top of the fence. He balances precariously in the boxer stance, one foot ahead of the other, as Matty starts to move up towards him, feeding the plank to him.
— Just lay it doon … Renton whispers, looking at the zombie faces of his friends, trying to fight off the notion that besets him: we’re not human any more. We’ve slipped out of our skins like lizards, shedding not just our pasts, but our futures. We’re shadows. His hands tremble as he looks down the second plank at Matty, and they carry it, balancing on the first one. For a moment it almost slips but Matty keeps a grip. Renton, with a balance and strength he’d never previously conceived of having, holds the end and keeps feeding it through. At the apex he lets the plank fall; his heart seems to fluff a couple of beats as he fears the timber’s end will miss the target of the outbuilding roof and fall hopelessly into no-man’s-land, aborting the mission, but it smacks onto the tarpaulin roof with a dull whack. The euphoria overcomes fear, and he stays rooted to his perch on top of the fence, waiting for alarms, guards and dogs.
But there’s nothing, and the boys are gathering round the base of the plank on the banking. He darts down the other plank, from fence-top onto roof, descending less sharply than the other; it’s like the planks form the hands on a clock stuck at twenty minutes to five. — C’mon, he whispers into the night.
Matty, despite his ailments, moves feline-slick, and joins him in seconds. They start to pass over the Sealink holdalls. It’s only now, when the plan seems to have at least some prospect of success, that Renton permits himself to think how stupid they’ve been, taking bags so distinguishable: Adidas or Head would have been better. Praying it won’t come to that, he feels the brittle, grainy felt of the roof crack under the thin soles of his worn trainers.
It’s Spud’s turn to cross into the plant; he starts slowly at first, one foot in front of the other in deliberation, then picks up speed on the incline. Getting to the top of the fence he looks wobbly, before he makes a swift descent down to the roof and into Renton’s arms.
Sick Boy follows, looking petulant and disgusted, as if traversing stocking-soled through a field of dog shit, but he negotiates the crossing, and squats on the roof panting nervously. They look below into the deathly still plant, illuminated by the night lights glowing dimly around them. Two metal boxes containing electronic eyes are visible, but face away from them, out towards the gates where workers will come and go. Renton thinks about the unseen men in a box somewhere, charged with looking at the grainy images on those screens. What would you ascertain after a few days but blurred black-and-white static?
— Some fucker tell that fat cunt tae wait there, Matty growls, looking at Keezbo who has got onto the first plank. — He’s no gaunny fuckin well m
ake it! Cunt, he’ll brek that fuckin plank n trap us aw in here!
The gape at each other in panic.
— He’ll slow every fucker doon, Sick Boy agrees, turning to Renton, but Keezbo has already commenced his climb.
— C’mon, Keith, Renton whispers encouragingly. — Wigan’s chosen few!
Sick Boy slaps his head, looking to Matty, as the plank buckles under the weight of Keezbo’s ascent. But the drummer presses on, like an elephant on a tightrope wire. — When ye git tae the top, dinnae stoap, just run right doon the other side, Matty calls out, rigid with tension, hands balling and unclenching by his side.
— Spirit ay Wigan Casino, Keezbo! Renton continues to coax.
Keezbo reaches the apex. Watching his advance, they feel their hearts race towards their mouths as he teeters for a scary two seconds as he changes planks, then power-descends towards them, the plank thrashing on the fence, his mouth open, eyes glaring. — Toughest skiers, Keezbo Yule. Renton plants a smacker of a kiss on Keezbo’s sweaty forehead as he comes to rest on the creaking roof. Sick Boy grapples two large buttocks and pelvic thrusts into him in delight.
They are on the outbuilding, a humdrum red-brick structure about fifteen-foot high and twenty-foot square. From this vantage point they look around for security. Nothing. All the cameras point away from them. They look at each other in a kind of childlike wonderment. They are five junkies from Leith, locked inside a compound with the biggest amount of pure morphine on these islands.
Renton scrambles down the drainpipe of the building. It’s plastic, not metal, as he’d imagined. He worries about Keezbo’s weight on it but says nothing. Matty is down behind him, followed by Spud, then Sick Boy. They again look in horror at Keezbo, then across to the main buildings of the plant, sensing that the pipe will come crashing down, trapping them all inside, helplessly sick in this Venus flytrap, for the morning shift to come and raise the alarm. However, Keezbo shimmies halfway down it, jumping the rest of the distance, landing on his feet with a big grin. — We’re in, Mr Mark, Danny, Simon, Matthew.
Renton limits his celebration to a solitary fist beat on his chest. Sick Boy’s eyes look as if they are about to pop from his head, and he briefly crouches down against the outbuilding for a second as if in great pain, then springs back to his feet. They go towards the floodlight pylons, making for the loading bay at the side of the processing plant where the plastic boxes are piled up on wooden pallets. — It’ll no be skag in thaime, Matty says, — it’ll aw be pharmaceuticals. The morphine’s gaunny be locked up, he moans.
Acknowledging the logic in what he says, Renton insists, — They’re sealed up though, and takes the iron bar from his Sealink bag. — We should make sure before we start brekin intae they labs n warehooses …
Keezbo and Spud are holding each other’s wrists and jumping around in a circle together, lost in a rabid, strung-out dance. — Here we go, here we go, here we go … they gasp in elation, before being silenced with prejudice, as a shrill, severing, turbo-powered alarm shrieks into the night. It seems to erupt from under the ground, vibrating up through their rubber soles, freezing them in the most paralysing shock they’ve ever experienced. It splits their eardrums, rendering them almost senseless. They can barely hear the shouts of men and barks of dogs above it as fear propels them to bolt through the disabling cacophony, across the concourse towards the outbuilding.
They don’t look back, not one of them; Renton gets there first but cups his hands, giving Sick Boy, then Spud, a grateful boost up the drainpipe. By the time he scuttles up onto the roof himself, he can see the moonlit skeleton he assumes is Daniel Murphy, vanishing into heaven, which means that Sick Boy has already crossed over to the embankment.
Renton now allows himself a backward glance. There seem too many pursuers to be feasible, swarming across the shadowy courtyard: dogs and men, barking psychotic encouragement and instruction at each other. Disregarding the shouts and snarls behind him, he launches himself up the plank. At the top, he looks back over his shoulder, shouting for Matty and Keezbo to get onto the roof. Then a flashlight blinds his eyes and he staggers down the board, expecting to fall into the void on the safe side of the barrier, but he makes it all the way to the sloping bank, feeling Spud grab his arm and guide him up to the tracks. Falling recumbent, they watch Sick Boy’s ivory silhouette stealing away down the south suburban railway line.
Renton and Spud see Matty coming onto the roof, torches from security guards picking him out. Keezbo is last up the pipe, the guards almost on him, an Alsatian leaping at his foot and missing by an inch. As Matty zooms up the plank towards the fence, Renton and Spud see Keezbo miraculously haul his large frame onto the outbuilding’s roof, the dogs snarling at him. It seems that there are around eight men and four dogs, yelping at each other, their handlers screaming into walkie-talkies over the alarm, which squawks like a monster mechanical bird whose eggs are under threat. Keezbo is on the roof. But as Matty hits the top of the fence to begin his descent, a twist of his heel sends the first plank sliding away and crashing down into the black space between the outbuilding and fence. Keezbo is stranded.
As the dogs bark, circling the building, they see Keezbo look first grievously, then sadly up at them from the other side of the fence. His features have contorted in an expression of deep pain and betrayal. Then they suddenly fade into a broken resignation, as he sits down on the roof, like a beaten junky Buddha, surrounded by the shouting men and snarling dogs beneath him.
— Fuck sake … Keezbo … Spud wheezes as Matty joins them on the track.
Renton suddenly springs to his feet, bellowing into the compound, — LEAVE UM ALAINE, YA FUCKIN FASCIST CUNTS! IT’S OOR FUCKIN GEAR! WE FUCKIN WELL NEED IT! WE’VE GOAT A FUCKIN RIGHT! He picks up stones from the embankment, hurling them over the fence at the guards and dogs. One strikes a dog in the side eliciting a high yelp. — C’MON THEN, YA FUCKIN SCABBY CUNTS!
Matty pulls him back. — C’mon! Cunt, we goat tae fuckin split, and they see Spud running down the tracks and follow him. Renton looks back a couple of times, then picks up speed to catch up with the others.
— Fat cunt … better no … grass us up, Matty rasps, as they run breathlessly to the abandoned wreckage of Gorgie Station, where they stop to recover. Sick Boy is waiting in the shadows. Renton feels his head spinning with the decimating effort of the flight as he struggles to get the air into his lungs.
— Nae gadge’s gaunny grass any cat up, Spud whines at Matty, taking deep breaths, as Sick Boy’s gaze whips from one to the other. — Keezbo’s sound.
— What happened tae the fuckin plank? Renton wheezes. — How could he no get up?
— It just fell back in, wi us climbin up it, Matty protests. He sees a judging aspect to Renton’s gaze. — It wis an accident! Cunt, what are ye tryin tae say?
Renton turns away, maintaining a pointed silence, but Sick Boy swiftly cuts in. — Tell ye what ah’m tryin tae say. A common snowdropper’s no in a position tae call any other cunt a grass.
— What? Matty turns to him.
— That sky-blue Fair Isle jumper ah hud. He points at Matty, his mouth buckled tight in accusation. — You ken, the one ye fuckin snowdropped fae the dryin green at the Bannanay flats that time.
— Ah fuckin never stole yir fuckin jumper! Matty turns to Spud in appeal. — Cunt, that was yonks ago, we were just wee laddies, every cunt snowdropped back then!
— Aye, but they didnae wear what they fuckin snowdropped! They flogged it, n bought new clathes. Only a fuckin tramp wears what they snowdrop, Sick Boy declares, lighting a cigarette, taking a drag. — Ah mind when ah sais tae my ma: ‘Matty Connell’s nicked that jumper you bought me, he wis wearin it at school,’ he smiles thinly. — Ken what she said? She goes: ‘Let him keep it, son. The Connells are a poor family, that boy needs it mair than you.’ That was what my ma said. My mother was prepared tae pit clathes oan the back ay a tramp, oan a lice-infested scruff, he nods gently as he mouths each word, — just caus
e she felt sorry for him.
— So that’s what ye think ay us, then? Eh? That’s what you’ve thought ay me aw they fuckin years?!
— That’s right, Sick Boy shrugs, — so go and get aw emotional, as per usual. Poor wee Matty. Poor fuckin sk-ruff!
Matty looks plaintively at Spud and Renton in appeal.
— Ye ken what ma take oan this is, Matty, Renton is bent over with his hands on his knees, but is looking sharply up at him, — this fuckin obsession yuv goat wi daein Keezbo doon? It’s aboot him being wi Shirley. They wir jist bairns whin they went oot thegither, for fuck sakes! She’s wi you now! Git the fuck ower it!
— What …? That’s goat nowt tae dae wi anything, Matty protests, wretched and feeble.
Sick Boy turns on him. — Heard it wis a fill-hoose job, her n Keezbo.
— Whaaa …? Matty gasps in disbelief. He looks at his friends, twisted, other-worldly, their cold eyes and zombie-like pallor, and he’d rather have stayed to face the dogs.
— Jist gaun by what I heard, Sick Boy says, mouth tightening.
— Heard fae who? Matty bites back, enraged. — FAE THAT FAT CUNT!?
— Burds talk n aw.
— What’re you fuckin well sayin, Williamson?
Sick Boy trains a studied gaze on Matty. — It wis her first time, when she went wi Keezbo. A big, fat ginger-pubed cock up ye, inside ye, burstin yir maidenhood, yir virgin blood trickling doon its shaft; it’s bound tae have been memorable for her. It’s only natural that she thinks ay that moment every single time she sets eyes on Keezbo. So it’s bound tae play on your mind but, mate, ah kin totally understand that.